KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News-Lompoc Wind Farm Targeted to Break Ground in 2010

Lompoc Wind Farm Targeted to Break Ground in 2010

12.24.09

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY - Harley McDonald is project developer for the planned Lompoc Wind Farm on about three thousand acres of ranch land at the southern tip of Miguelito Canyon Road.

"This property was ideal for many reasons, first of all the wind is here, you have to go where the wind is", McDonald says, "but also its remote."

The builder is Acciona Energy, a Spanish Company and global leader in alternative energy solutions including wind power.

"We've got wind farms in maybe a dozen countries throughout the world", McDonald says, "just in the last two years we've developed over 410 megawatts just here in the United States.

The Lompoc project calls for up to 65 turbines, each about 400 feet tall with blades about 130 feet wide, along the ridgelines above a giant bowl.

"Each is only going to take up about an acre of land and so the ranchers are going to be able to continue doing exactly what they do now which is cattle ranching", McDonald adds.

At full build out the Lompoc Wind Farm is expected to generate about 98 megawatts or enough to power more than 40,000 homes every year.

"It's going to power most of north Santa Barbara County", McDonald says.

"It's just very frustrating with what's going on up there", says rancher George Bedford, "we live in a beautiful area, a beautiful county."

Bedford's 400 acre ranch is closest to the planned wind farm.

He tried unsuccessfully to stop the project from moving forward because of its expected deadly impacts to avian wildlife which Acciona has promised to mitigate. 

"Since the California Department of Fish and Game has basically been bought off this project", Bedford told County Supervisors in September, "the Environmental Defense Center, the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club don't seem to have any concern about the bats, birds, bees, owls and everything else that lives up the canyon."

Bedford is suing the county for approving the project claiming there was a flawed environmental impact report and a violation of the general plan.

"We continue to see this thing as the county doing a flying EIR on this project", Bedford told the supervisors, "and that's very disconcerting when the rest of us can't get by with that."

Acciona is in the final permitting process and hopes to break ground on the wind farm later in 2010 and be fully operational by late 2011 or early 2012.

Construction for the Lompoc Wind Farm is expected to create as many as 200 jobs.

After it's completed about ten people will be hired on full-time.